Dek Blocks vrs. cement footings

I live in the Toronto, Canada area and am planning on building a deck
in the next few weeks. I have two co-workers who used dek blocks to
build their decks and also anchored the deck to their houses. They
swear by using the deck blocks and have had no issues with their decks
moving or any damage caused by the floating deck and the anchoring to
the house.
I am debating using the dek blocks vs. cement footings. Dek blocks
certainly do seem easier then cement footings. I am wondering if
anyone in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) has used dek blocks and
anchored their deck to the house and if it has caused any issues. I
don't know how much movement would occur from frost in the GTA.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
Duke1973

Doesn't seem easier to me, guess it depends on how you are building
your deck. If it twer me I would much rather drill three holes, fill
the with concrete and go up from there. leveling 20 blocks on the dirt
seems like it would be much more time consuming especially if the deck
isn't at ground level:
http://www.deckplans.com/howto_bracing.html
Dek blocks? NIMBY

Don't know about Canada, but per Dek in the US:
"The Floating Foundation Deck System conforms to all national and
regional building codes when the deck is *unattached* from the house."
http://www.deckplans.com/buildingcodes.html
Michael Thomas
Paragon Home Inspection, LLC
Chicago, IL
mdtATparagoninspectsDOTcom
847-475-5668

The deck WILL move in our Toronto area weather, with all the freezing and
thawing we get at the end of winter, the decks will move up and down. The
type of soil will affect how bad this will be as well as the amount of water
in the soil. This will slowly loosen the nails and/or fasteners at the house
wall even if they haven't noticed any movement to date. My deck has concrete
down to 4 1/2 feet below the soil level, and I get no movement. Just to
illustrate the problems with frost, I have had chain link fence posts pushed
a foot out of the ground.

Those Dek Blocks are designed to be placed on a stable surface. That
often means on top of a concrete footing that goes down below the frost
line, so they don't eliminate the need to pour footings.
If your house was built, say, more than 10 years ago, then I *might* think
about placing them on the ground since the back filling would have settled
well enough that the ground *might* be a stable enough surface -- but
*think* about it is likely all that I would do.

I grew up on the east coast and can tell you without a doubt the ground
will move where you are at...The only way to do it RIGHT is to dig the
footiings BELOW the frost line. Yes this is more exspensive but much
cheaper that having to fix the deck after a couple of winters or the
house if you attach it to the house.....just go rent a post hole auger
(gas powered) this is usually a 2 person machine but many newer models
require only one. you will have the holes dug in no time.. thinking of
doing it by hand? think again you will be there for days bite the
bullet and spend the little bit of money for the rental..good luck
Duke1973 wrote:

I'm not from Toronto, but my deck and I live across Lake Ontario in
Rochester, NY, with very similar conditions as you have. We used dek
blocks for our deck, but we did NOT tie the deck to the house. This
deck has been stable, settling very little over the 3 years of its
existence, and only because of the 270-gallon hot tub in one corner,
where we added reinforcement lumber.
The other important aspect of our deck you need to be aware of, aside
from the fact that it's not tied to the house, is that it's only about
2 feet up off the ground. It's not a high deck at all, another reason
for the success of the dek blocks for our situation.

After reading other replies, I'd like to add that our deck is on very
compacted soil (the house was built in 1930) that was flat, so we
didn't have leveling problems while constructing it. We also did not
pour footers of any kind for the blocks, and all remains well three
years later. The dek blocks saved us a lot of time and money.

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